Speaking at the Home Builders Federation (HBF) conference in London, Reed acknowledged that there had been “very encouraging signs” from both local authorities and housebuilders, but added there was “inconsistency in approach”.
Sitting on permissions
He continued: “Yes, many councils are approving more, but a small number are still failing on speed and quality of their decisions, and yes, many developers are getting more applications in, but some are still sitting on permissions for viable projects.
“I will be frank that we need you to build out existing sites and bring forward more, more quickly.”
Reed talked about the importance of a three-way partnership between central government, local government and developers. He said without each playing their part, the government would never achieve its target of delivering one-and-a-half million homes.
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He added: “By and large, they are pulling their weight, but let’s be honest; we’ve not yet seen enough to meet the ambitions set.”
He said he wanted his words to be treated as a call to arms for builders to “get those applications in and get shovels in the ground”.
SMEs hit back
Reed’s comments drew fire from the audience members made up of the housebuilding industry, particularly SME builders.
One said: “SMEs don’t [sit on land]. We have to build, because otherwise, we would go bankrupt. We’ve got more blockages in the systems today than what we had two years ago.”
They added: “I’m not entirely sure that central government understands.”
While Reed disagreed that conditions for bringing forward new homes had worsened in the last two years, he said the government was focused on how it could improve conditions for SMEs and was always open to conversations about what more could be done.
He added: “Is it as good as it should be? No. So let’s keep the conversation going, because we do want to back you.”
His willingness to engage with the housebuilding sector and his positive approach to making improvements was praised by some audience members.
Inflationary impact
He was also asked if the government would bring back to Help to Buy to give developers the confidence to buy land and start building, knowing there was the demand.
Reed replied: “If we look at Help to Buy, it undoubtedly created a stimulus effect initially, but I think it also created the effect of pushing up prices. I think it did over time, although I can see some shaking heads [in the audience].
“We need to look at it and learn what aspects of it worked and what aspects of it didn’t work.”
The war in the Middle East is currently the government’s focus, he said.
He added: “We’ve got to get back to the stability that we were seeing at the point where the Chancellor made her Spring Statement.
“That’s good for the whole economy, not just for developers. But of course, we will look at the demand side of it as well, not if we think it is going to be inflationary.
“We know that if there are interventions, they need to be targeted. We can all have conversations about what that might need to look like, but right now, with the instability we’re seeing globally, we need to calm things down as quickly as possible.”
